Pretty Girls Lie
by tekken4life
Summary: Everything is never as it seems... especially when your dreams are on the line. Jori oneshot


**Pretty Girls Lie**

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Victorious or any of the characters; else I would have renewed the show for another season.

**Author's Note:** Hey guys, what's happening? I decided to do a Jori one shot due to this sudden inspiration of mine when actually I'm supposed to be doing my lab work… oh well, I'm sure my supervisor will understand! At least I think he will… he's never around anymore. Anyways, this story is dedicated to the queen (and I use that term very lightly because she hates it) of everything Jori, my dear old pal **Knightales**. I miss you so bad buddy! I cannot wait for our Friday hookups (totally not dirty)! So dear readers, please sit back, enjoy and let me know what you thought...

"When will it all end Tori? I mean really; I am a good person, I do good things!" I cricked my head quizzically at the miserable redhead across the bar counter. The only reason I ever referred to Cat as a redhead was because I was afraid of the refined stares of haughtiness I'd get if I ever screamed 'Hey pinkhead!' across the streets. Los Angeles was basically puzzle pieces of unforgiving suburbs, all of them filled with their infuriatingly posh residents – one fatal grammar mistake, and I'd have to change states to escape the looks of condescending sympathy from parents whose own children had less mental power than a dead goldfish. "Oh Victoria darling" they'd drawl, always with that same clip of upper class distance in their voices. "Was it tough for you across the border? Is it true that your family is under federal investigation for being involved in a drug cartel?" They irritated the hell out of me at first, but somewhere along the line, I had just given up on fighting back. It was far more entertaining to smile sweetly, tell them that my father and uncles were in fact drug dealers with extremely honed murder skills and watch the panic hit their faces with all the clout of a thunderbolt. Besides, I didn't have anything to prove to this town at all: I was happy with my life, end of story. Sure, it wasn't the most glamorous of lifetimes, but what I had achieved so far made me proud of myself and I was going to make damn sure no one made was going to take that away from me.

"And now, Andrew's gone off to spend time with that Melanie" huffed Cat, letting her eyes spark wrathfully as stuffed a cloth down a glass tumbler. Wiping it with three quick strokes, I set back onto the counter before picking up the next one. "Your little brother is hanging around someone named Melanie? Sounds like a cougar."

"I know, right? Fucking dumbass babysitter!" she cursed, drawing in her knuckles to deathly white stubs. "He is MY baby!" I set down the glass with a dark grimace, throwing my head around to gaze anywhere but at her. To say that Cat adored her brother was more than an understatement, it was a crime. She took sibling love to a whole level where it just shouldn't be for obvious and legal purposes. "OK, as much as I do not approve of the whole incest thing you and Andrew have going on-"

"We're not incestuous. We just love each other deeply, that's all. Although sometimes it feels like it's totally one-sided."

"Yeah, did not need to know that" I said, pointing my finger at her to stop her from interrupting. "But you don't have a babysitter."

"Well, not yet! But I'm sure her name is Melanie and that she'll steal him away from me!"

"Wasn't Melanie the name of that imaginary neighbor you thought kept stealing your mail?" Cat's expression bewilderedly neutralized itself. "Oh yeah. No wonder my One Direction posters never came through the post! Fucking Melanie!"

"And isn't Melanie your mother's name?"

"I am starting to see a pattern here…" I resisted the urge to slap my open palm exasperatedly against my face. In the ten years that I had come to call her my friend, I never once played the game of stupid with my beloved redhead. She would always win.

"Do you think I need therapy?" asked my delirious companion, fidgeting with her fingers anxiously. I arched a sardonic brow at her. "You? No, of course not. You're the most normal person I know."

"Why thank you good sir" she said, throwing me a brief grin. "How goes the scholarly life? Do they finally realize they have the next Adele on their hands?"

"Cat, I'm studying ACTING, not SINGING" I said slowly, careful to let my every word penetrate that wonderfully granite-reinforced skulled. "And it's going great. I'm up for a review next week."

"You know, I find it weird that an off Broadway company would pick two people in UCLA of all places for scholarship recipients."

"This coming from the girl with undisclosed mother issues" I said flatly, finally throwing my cloth back onto the counter. "And besides, it's extremely prestigious. All of their plays have been nominated for Tony awards."

"Sounds amazing."

"Compared to that enchanted world you live in, it actually is."

"Vega, can I get a scotch on the rocks?" The cold icy cut of the voice registered immediately in my ears, its brutal snap sending a flick of thunder down my spine. I turned my head to see its owner gaze expectantly at me, flicking her raven black her out of her eyes to grant me the full extent of her eyes – pools of devastating brown, so frighteningly hypnotizing that they could drown out the world. "Coming right up Jade" I said, slipping my head into a slight nod. Without another word, she disappeared back into the bustle of the bar, losing herself in the acrid crawls of smoke and alcohol. "Wow, your stalker is already here" noted Cat, pulling her face into an annoyed mask of what it once was. "She takes crazy to a whole fucking new level."

"Do you even listen to yourself when you talk? And she's not my stalker."

"Your friend then?"

"No. Just the other girl who got the bursary." My head immediately faded to blackness as soon as my sentence ended, watching the steady flow of gold liquor tenderly caress the soft clipped ice cubes in the glass tumbler. To be utterly honest, Jade West really was a stalker, but my pride prevented me from admitting defeat to the goldmine of psychological problems. Ever since I started my part time job at the bar, Jade had been a regular. A loner of particular note, but a regular nonetheless. She made sure she came in during the last two hours of my shift with assassin-like precision, only bringing herself to order something within the last hour. She always kept to herself, surveying everyone in the room with those intensely calculating eyes, capable of reading people like a book. She was truly a force to be reckoned with.

"So what do you know about her?" asked Cat, pulling me out of my mental reverie. I briefly looked up at her before setting the glass onto a nearby serving tray, grabbing a serviette from the stack of white squares. "Nothing."

"Nothing? Like not a thing? Not even if she's a panty or thong kind of girl?" I sighed wearily. "Must you use such disgusting imagery?"

"I'm just saying Tori, that girl is not right in the head. Still waters run very, VERY deep. I mean, look at Melanie."

"Please take your family issues elsewhere."

-xoxoxoxoxo-

The thick planks of sunshine fell upon the well manicured lawns of UCLA, singing the air with their heated freshness. My ears were constantly zoned in on the mild bustle around me, but my eyes solely honed in on the thin stack of papers bound in my lap. I curled my legs up onto the bench as I furthered my way down to the perfectly manicured typing. The words of my script consumed my head entirely, ringing an entire rainbow of emotions within my psyche. It never ceased to amaze me how simple sentences stringed together could induce such a powerful spectrum within us humans. Maybe that's just me being sentimental about my calling as an 'entertainment slut' as my sister puts it, but I really do believe that it just takes one push of a domino to bring the entire world down to your knees –it just has to be the right one, and for me, that black and white metaphoric tile was acting. I don't think there ever once was a point in my life where I didn't want to lose myself under the skin of another persona. There was magic in that pretending and it didn't have anything to do with the flat glamour of the job: just the possibility of taking on someone else's life for even a few minutes was enough to bring these spells for words to life, and it was my humble pleasure to call this my job.

"Studying hard?" I looked up to see Jade stand over me, her expression completely set into a blank slate. Her eyes were dark swirls, so stormy and hypnotically beautiful. It really was odd that a girl like this would spend her time going along with some dark cloud hanging above her head. "Yeah, I'm kind of on edge for that review next week" I murmured, flickering my line of sight in between her and my pages. "How's it going with you?"

"Not much. I just wish this Lindsay character had a little more substance to her."

"I think she does. She's sweet."

"I don't do sweet. But I know that you do." I frowned at her words, equally bewildered by them and the inconspicuous absence of blush on her cheeks. "What makes you say that?"

"I've watched your scene studies. You're a good actress, but you really excel at those sickly sweet, broken heroine kind of girls."

"Um… is that a compliment?"

"It actually is" she said with a superior smirk, taking the space right beside me on the bench. "Any idiot can do sweet, but not that many people can pull off broken." A burst of unexpected levity briefly broke through her smile before it was retracted back into the folds of her mystery, bewitching me entirely. "I'd take my hat off to you" she said plainly, fiddling her thumbs against one another. "If I wore hats. Or even liked them."

"Would it be too forward if I asked you something personal?"

"I'm guessing it would be, but go ahead anyways." My breath automatically exhaled itself invisibly to the atmosphere, a weak defense to calm myself. "Do you like being alone?" Jade sniggered softly at my question, her expression almost lighting up into a distinct triumph. "What makes you think I'm alone?"

"The fact that every time I see you, you're always by yourself. Even when you come to the bar, you're just so… detached."

"With all the lowlifes your little bar attracts, can you blame me?"

"Then why come at all?" My question hung around her uncomfortably, forcing her to shift anxiously on the bench. Her eyes left my own, casting themselves to the rolling emerald of the lawns. "You do a decent scotch."

"Yes, it has been my life's ambition to master the art of scotch" I nodded, placing my script in the space between us as I set my legs to the grass. "I hate the stuff though."

"I love it. There's this beautiful bitterness to it that you can't get anywhere else" she said, lifting her gaze to me once more. "It tastes like… broken dreams and reality."

"How very poetic of you." She laughed quietly. "I'm no poet. Hell, I'm not even an actress." I opened my mouth to comfort her but immediately sided with my better judgment and closed it. My words of comfort would be a slap in the face to her: I hadn't seen any of her work. I didn't even know how she functioned as a person let alone an actress. For once, there was a good damn chance that Cat could be right. Jade West was just too intense for me to get to know. It was shallow of me to think like this, but the girl seemed to be an entire maze of broken pieces that just would not fit together. She was the kind of person that needed time, something that fought so hard against me every day. In between campus and the bar, I hardly had a moment to breathe let alone nourish my extinct social life. Jade would have to settle being one of those people I knew faintly rather than being a surgically attached companion like Cat.

"Can I ask you something now?" I drew myself up from the script to look at her again, her line of sight burning right through me as if I was plastic. "Shoot."

"I'm not connecting with Lindsay at all. This may sound a little creepy, but can you come over to my place to help me? I don't want to lose this scholarship." My mind instantly bubbled up with every kind of excuse, each more pathetic than the last. This was against everything I had just steeled myself against, but the imploring pools staring back at me took away every resistance I could muster with the easiest of efforts. I was slipping, I could feel it. "Sure."

-xoxoxoxoxo-

"Damn it Stella, why the hell can't you see what he's doing to you? He's using you and you're playing right along to his tune!" My eyes blinked bewilderedly as they tried to adjust to the swirling vortex of anger of in front of me. Damn it, why couldn't I stop staring at her? "Because I need to?"

"Are you asking or telling me Vega?" said Jade flatly, sarcastically shaking her head as she threw her script onto the bed. "Honestly, does all that memorizing really pay off?"

"Sorry, my head isn't here at all" I murmured, craning my neck to look around. The ice white walls reflected the late afternoon sunbeams, scantily clad with anything else. In fact, the entire room looked like an apartment someone had just moved into – only the insidious tendrils of sharp red against the black wood of the bed and matching nightstand showed any signs of personality, with the rest of the room being open to grandeur of its owner's imagination. Clearly Jade believed in hiding her streaks of human nature from everyone – including herself.

"Yes, I do like it kitsch, don't I?" muttered my newfound 'friend' sardonically, rounding on her heel to face me. I raised my eyebrows in surprise at her, feeling this enigma grow all the more powerful. "You don't let people in, do you?" I asked quietly, still letting my sight wander around the naked walls of our prison. I heard an amused chuckle gently ring itself out across the room. "Very observant of you. Tell you what, if this acting gig falls flat, you could make a fortune as a shrink. And you don't even half to remember your clients. It's like you're a high end hooker, except you don't have to sleep with anyone."

"If only that was the first time someone called me that" I sighed, tilting my head at her. My eyes narrowed quizzically. "Call me Captain Obvious here, but you're a complete mystery to everyone."

"Why thank you. I'm doing my job well then."

"Be a little serious at least Jade. I mean, why isolate yourself like that?"

"You do it from what I've seen."

"I don't have a choice. I have a job, studies and a family that knows no boundaries." Jade heaved her ribs in a deep breath as she folded her arms, looking at me through her fast-melting stubbornness. "It never… it never used to be like this all the time. This room used to belong to my sister. I've only just brought myself to move into it."

"I'm sorry" I whispered, feeling the heat of my blush claw its way up my cheeks. I looked away nervously, only to hear her footsteps echo across to the nightstand. A loud scratching filled the air as she walked back to me, gently shoving a piece of paper in my hand. I studied the fine charcoal detail of the girl imprinted onto the blank slate, her features drawn in with such perfection. I practically drank in her thick flowing locks, my eyes wandering across to the fine grin of her cheekbones. "Is this her?" I asked uncertainly, feeling a lump catch inside my throat painfully. Jade nodded bringing forth a melancholic smile to her lips. "I'm doing this because of her. She always wanted to be an actress. I was more of a mathematical prodigy myself." She cocked her head to the side to study the drawing alongside with me. "When she was in high school, her boyfriend always used to joke that she loved eating a little too much. It went to her head. She stopped eating and became this stick figure." Jade took in a drawling breath to steady herself; her eyes lining themselves with the beginning of unequivocal proof that a heart did indeed beat beneath all the mystery. "Her body grew too weak. We took her doctors, therapists, dieticians, she just wouldn't listen." She let out a hoarse choke. "She was so beautiful but she just wouldn't listen to any of us."

"Jade, I'm sorry" I whispered softly, barely noticing that my hand had let the drawing flutter slowly to the floor. Another shake of her head followed her restrained sob. "If you tell anyone that story-"

"Who am I going to tell? I'm like you, remember?" Jade gently grasped at my wrist, pulling me closer to her body. She smelt like faint blooms of jasmine and peach, her luxurious nightshade locks falling softly against the weak pink of her cheeks. Her face moved hesitantly closer to mine, her eyes slowly closing. Every pore of logic in my body screamed in my head for this to stop, but my body paralyzed itself in a show of its betrayal. This wasn't happening, this couldn't be happening… and yet I didn't want it to stop. In the moment her lips met mine, electricity sparked all across my body in the most exquisite of tortures… and I finally gave up my fight.

-xoxoxoxoxo-

My reflection stared blankly off at me from the mirror, leaving me to wonder who the girl I was looking at was exactly. It had been a week since I last saw Jade, but my head still spun around furiously like it had been the moment after we kissed. I had done my best to make myself invisible at UCLA and there was no hint of her ever coming to the bar. My guilt cruelly made sure it knew no boundaries for me taking off soon after that, but no other option made itself known to me. I had to hand it to my pinkhead – she was an idiot when it came to the most simplest of actions, but she sure knew which people to avoid. The harder I tried to keep myself calm about this, the more I panicked. I hadn't even thought about being with another girl up until now. Sure, one kiss didn't quite turn me into Ellen Degeneres, but it was enough to stir up my already flustered mind into this malicious stance of overdrive. What the hell was Jade thinking? What was I thinking for that matter? Was I even thinking? "It doesn't matter now" I said through gritted teeth, ignoring the near clinical surroundings of the bathroom to focus on my reflection. "The review is in fifteen minutes and if you're anything stellar, you can kiss that scholarship goodbye." My heart wrung itself out mercilessly in my chest at the thought of seeing her there, but my angst would have to wait for another time. I hadn't come this far to fail.

With a quick blast of air through my lips, I turned around to see Jade stand in my way, her hands wringing themselves together. There was no hint of the cool composure she wore so aptly this time: her eyes were red, enough to sadly compliment the helpless expression splattered across her visage. She had finally broken. "I can't do it" she croaked miserably, shoving herself onto the support of a nearby basin. I looked away exasperatedly. I couldn't keep doing this to myself. Each attempt to build some sort of grace fell spectacularly in my face. "Jade, about that-"

"I'm not talking about that Vega!" she sobbed, running a palm up her face and into her hair. I took a tentative step closer towards her, feeling myself fall under that same enchantment from before. "I can't do anything!" she whispered brokenly, finally turning to face me. "I can't remember most of the lines, and I can't do the ones I know properly!"

"Just relax" I heard myself say. By this point, I was completely detached from my body, basking in the surreal firmness of this moment. "Look, I'll go over this thing with you."

"It won't help!" A shudder passed through her body as tensely drew her fingers through the ebony of her locks. How could someone so easily lose themselves like this? "I need this Tori!" My heart sped faster at her calling my name. Damn it! "Jade-"

"I can't lose this scholarship, it'll all be over! And my sister…" My hand reached out to gingerly lay itself on her shoulder, trying to coerce her caught breath from her throat. I was a slave to this warped magnetism and I couldn't do a fucking thing. "What do you want from me Jade?"

"Help me Tori." Her eyes glittered under the fluorescent light, voids of emptiness that consumed my every strand of being. "Help me."

-xoxoxoxoxo-

My heart sped to rocket speed as I raced down the corridor, my eyes darting at every single possible spot to avoid all obstacles. Why I was doing this, I didn't know. This was my entire life, everything I had wanted, and I was about to risk it all for someone I barely knew all because of some stupid kiss. So how come I felt it was more than that? My goals felt so insignificant to the thunders of confusion pounding away at me. I wanted nothing more than to slip off the face of the earth, and yet I had this incredibly heady rush at the same time. I shouldn't be doing ANY of this, not when I was so close to becoming what I always thought I would be. Jade West had me caught in her web and she didn't even know it, and I played along like the fool I was. I had gone below even Cat's mental level, disgraced by my own instincts. "Well done Vega, you're truly trapped now."

"I wouldn't do that if I were you." A voice from the perpendicular passage paused my feet at its icy call. My head frowned bemusedly to see a woman step out of the passing shadows, her stare so familiar and cutting. There was something vaguely familiar about her: her hair was set in neat, straight strands while her cheeks arched themselves neutrally. "Excuse me?" I asked, watching her make her way forward to me. A grin barely graced across the twist of her lips. "You haven't seen the picture?" My face slackened as I remembered her, the black of her eyes matching the ones I had seen once before. "You're Jade's sister?"

"I'm curious, how did die this time?" she asked curtly, her eyes never once leaving my face. She possessed the same breathless intensity as her sister. "I've heard it all – cancer, AIDS, meningitis. What did she tell you?"

"Anorexia" I said softly, feeling my stomach sickeningly lurch down my body. My head was one more truth away from coming off its axis entirely. Jade's sister could not be standing here with me because she had died from anorexia – she told me so. "What… wh-"

"What's going on?" She sighed wearily. "My little sister has this habit of manipulating people for her own pleasure. It's been a problem ever since our parents died, and yes they are dead." She looked away, taking a single step past me. "I can't tell you how many times she's ruined the lives of people. She's got more high schools on her C.V. than China has people. Every time, it's the same story – 'big sister died, I'm so sad, kiss me.'"

"And you didn't do anything to stop it?" Somewhere in my numbness a ball of rage had exploded inside, and I didn't need any higher psychology degree to know why. I felt raw and vulnerable, scrubbed by the apparent lies. I had been the puppet for someone else's sick, twisted ploys. "Tell me, how many others are there?"

"Oh, you weren't one of the first. And you definitely aren't the last; I can assure you of that." Jade's elder sister turned around. "I've spent the best years of my life looking after her, making sure she didn't feel any of the pain I had to go through. I've sent her to shrinks, even a Christian camp once to try change her ways and it just comes back worse." Her eyes became curious dark slits. "I followed her to that bar you work at one time. She never let you leave her sight, not even for a bit. I did a little digging here on campus and I found out who you were."

"Why? Why me?"

"Jade's never been one to simply give up. Once she wants something, she does everything to get it." I shook my head, unable to tell what was true and what was beginning to sound like well-crafted smoke and mirrors. I had been used, a plaything for someone who wanted me like an object… to have. "Is she in love with me?" I asked, raising a palm to my forehead. The woman flicked her hair nonchalantly. "Jade doesn't love. Its sad for me to say so, but its true. To her, you're probably like the moral version of a sexual conquest. Basically, she wants to break you."

"She did a fucking good job!"

"I know she did" said the woman quietly, slipping her head into a slight nod. "The question is now, Victoria, what will you do?"

-xoxoxoxoxo-

"You won't ever try to get to all the bases with me, will you?" asked Cat wryly, toying around with her bottle of Coke as I wiped down the glasses. The acrid smell of smoke and alcohol that I was so used to sickened me now, pulsating nausea through my stomach. What I had once trusted was now foreign to me and I had to learn to build myself up to it again, just like I had to start to trust myself and the big bad world out there waiting for me to fall. "There isn't enough tequila in Mexico to make me do that with you of all people Cat" I said, furiously rubbing down the glass tumbler with my cloth. Cat shook her head carelessly. "I mean, I will if you will."

"Again, my answer is no."

"Alright, don't bite my head off. No wonder your stalker upped and left you."

"You know Cat, she wasn't a stalker" I exclaimed, slamming the glass down. I drew a few concerned stares, but a twist of my head returned them back to their original position. "She needs help, OK? I don't what for, but she needs professional help."

"Help? That bitch needs Jesus, Moses, Buddha, Allah; whatever damn religion you can think of" stated Cat, the edge of disgust in her voice not missing my ears. "You should be glad she stopped coming here."

"And campus too" I breathed, laying down the cloth. "She got her scholarship taken away. I guess the one thing she didn't lie about was that she really didn't know her lines."

"Boy did she bank on the wrong horse."

"But I was about to give it up for her anyways Cat" I said flatly. "I was about to risk my neck to save hers, and I wasn't the wiser. I would have willingly given up my dreams for her-"

"You know what her problem was" said Cat, a knowing look appearing on her face. I shook my head smilingly. "What?"

"She was too pretty. Well, prettier than me anyways. And pretty girls always lie." I frowned at the words as I lay my hand on the cloth again to wipe the counter, but my beloved pinkish redhead did have a point after all. People like that, who are so intoxicating that they take you up completely, they rarely are who they say they are. It might be a while before I lost myself to anything like that again, but this time I was wiser. My pride and ambition were all I could trust for now, and that was enough. "Pretty girls lie" I repeated, arching my brow at her. "You know what Cat; there just might be hope for you yet."

"Really? Well, would you tell that to that damn babysitter?"

**So guys what did you think? Thank you for taking the time to read my story! Please leave a review, and until next time, remember: stay safe, don't do drugs and Jori on! **** Ciao!**


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